leaving camp

I spent this past week over at the Boy's Camp site doing program for Fuel. Fuel is a week-long teen camp for 15-17 year olds. A good number of them were LITs and staff at the various sites around the lake and then go to Fuel to be a camper one last time and debrief/decompress from the summer. The week's theme was Jumanji, which I think I wrote in my last blog post, so sorry for being redundant. What would happen is every day, at random, we would play the sound of the drums from the Jumanji movie over the PA system at Boy's Camp. Every time they heard the drums, they had to gather at their team locations, get a clue, and complete some sort of task: fit your whole team into a chalet, get the milk out of a coconut and take it to someone, build a fire on the beach, etc. There was one night where we had a pig roast on the beach, so their task was to take all the dining hall benches and tables down to the beach, which was hilarious and awesome.

The week was challenging in new and different ways from the rest of the summer. For example, I spent the whole summer programming for 6 to 10 year olds and was now having to program for 15 to 17 year olds. I actually missed children so much that I got the camp-wide inclusion coordinator, who was my neighbor in the lodge the whole summer, to drive her three boys over to Boy's Camp so that I could hang out with them for an hour. Best hour of my life. I also just missed the AC program team. Don't get me wrong, the people I was working with for Fuel were wonderful and amazing, but they just weren't the people I'd been working with all summer, and it's difficult to transition so quickly to a brand new set of people. The good news is that I ended up rooming with one of my best friends from years past at AC, which made the week this incredible time for us to catch up and hang out after not having seen each other for 2 or 3 years.

The highlight of my week was by far hanging out with the work program guys. I don't remember if I've explained what work program is or not yet, so I'm going to explain it again. At camp, we have the inclusion program where kids with exceptionalities or kids who need some extra care and support are able to be integrated into camp programming and participate as fully as possible in whatever is going on. Then those campers grow up and really age out of camp programming, so they can come back and do work program. Each participant is paired with a job coach, and the two of them will spend the majority of the day cleaning the site, doing dishes, doing laundry, restocking the tuck shop, whatever needs doing. Then of course they get to goof around at the waterfront or join in a wide game or what have you. It's an amazing program. Three of the work program staff were guys on staff at AC this summer, so I already wanted to hang out with them, but their participants were also amazing and I loved every second I spent with them. The Work Pro staff always had to do paperwork during breakfast, so I sat with one participant most mornings. He would often look up at me, smile and tell me that I was fired. Very soon after that he would then tell me that I was hired. It basically experienced a roller coaster of emotions every morning as I was fired and re-hired several times. He always laughed at my jokes, he wanted to know what I was doing for the day,  he waved every time he saw me, it was the best friendship, and I'm really sad that the week is over and we can't hang out again.

But, like every week, Fuel had to end. We cleaned and closed down the Boy's Camp site, went for one last swim, ate some delicious burgers, said our goodbyes, and rolled away from camp. While it wasn't as difficult as closing day at AC, it was still hard to leave camp for good. It's always difficult to step down off the mountaintop. Like Peter, I find myself saying, "Lord, it is good for me to be here" (Matthew 17:4). But like Peter, I am also a bit shortsighted and can't even imagine what is coming next. I have this feeling in my belly (right next to the feeling of serious hunger that I am about to go fix) that something big is happening, something exciting that I can't even fathom. I know I'm spending a year in Rwanda, but this feeling isn't just about a place, it's about all the things that will happen and the ways I will grow and learn. I can't wait.